Capt. America Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 The Premier Development League (PDL), or fourth level on the US Soccer Pyramid, is putting a new development squad in the College Station area. At the moment, they are taking submissions from locals for team names, colors, and badges. I decided to check out the Dynamo reddit, where there was a strong push for the "Brazos Valley Fennecs," based on the current Houston Dynamo Mascot. One of their logo concepts is shown below. Now, I decided to go in a different direction. I know that the town gets its name from the old train station where the students would get off to head towards Texas A&M. Trains have had a huge influence on the city and the way the town is starting to redevelop roads. Because of this, I decided to go with "Brazos Valley Rail Runners FC." It pays homage to the history of the town without necessarily having to venture into Texas A&M-association territory. I decided on the color scheme mainly from the existing colors that the Dynamo use, but still aiming to have their own identity. Thoughts, concerns, and general comments are welcome! hoping to see if my design (or something similar) ends up becoming the badge for an actual team! (This is a fairly early concept, so I'm certainly willing to tweak it as needed) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broncoboy7 Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 That first logo that they proposed is atrocious. That is just way too much of a simple design for a soccer team. As for the logo that you proposed, really nice job, but just one little nitpick. The blue lines that are on the ends of the track are pixelated, just refine those edges, and you are good to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt. America Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 1 hour ago, Broncoboy7 said: That first logo that they proposed is atrocious. That is just way too much of a simple design for a soccer team. As for the logo that you proposed, really nice job, but just one little nitpick. The blue lines that are on the ends of the track are pixelated, just refine those edges, and you are good to go. I cleaned up the tracks and also attached a secondary badge that has the Space City Blue as the outer border. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broncoboy7 Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 Both look good! But I like the first one more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slapshot Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 This is way too detailed, and there's a lot of things going on in it. Imagine this as a patch or embroidered on a jersey. 1. The font by itself is ok, but the weird shading inside would never be visible on a jersey. The lettering looks "dirty", and doesn't add anything to the logo itself. 2. The railroad tracks. They're too small for the border, and there's so many rails you'd never make out what they were if the logo was reduced to a smaller size. 3. Rail Runners. Probably not necessary. If that's a team nickname, you don't need it, because now you're overloading the logo with text. 4. The star/sunburst thing. Not sure what this is, but it adds a distracting pattern that's fighting for attention with the rails. 5. Gradients. So many gradients. A subtle gradient is not necessarily a bad thing, but it you have to put it in there to add depth or shading, you should rework that part of the logo. Again, gradients don't translate well to embroidery. 6. Simplify simplify simplify. Remove some of the text. Get rid of the extra rail elements. Maybe have a much simpler rail-type border between "Brazos Valley" and "FC". Then fill the interior black circle with the star/sunburst, and outline it in the lighter blue. You'll still retain all the elements, but it simplifies everything while still remaining sharp even at a smaller size. Back-to-Back Fatal Forty Champion 2015 & 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt. America Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 45 minutes ago, slapshot said: This is way too detailed, and there's a lot of things going on in it. Imagine this as a patch or embroidered on a jersey. 1. The font by itself is ok, but the weird shading inside would never be visible on a jersey. The lettering looks "dirty", and doesn't add anything to the logo itself. 2. The railroad tracks. They're too small for the border, and there's so many rails you'd never make out what they were if the logo was reduced to a smaller size. 3. Rail Runners. Probably not necessary. If that's a team nickname, you don't need it, because now you're overloading the logo with text. 4. The star/sunburst thing. Not sure what this is, but it adds a distracting pattern that's fighting for attention with the rails. 5. Gradients. So many gradients. A subtle gradient is not necessarily a bad thing, but it you have to put it in there to add depth or shading, you should rework that part of the logo. Again, gradients don't translate well to embroidery. 6. Simplify simplify simplify. Remove some of the text. Get rid of the extra rail elements. Maybe have a much simpler rail-type border between "Brazos Valley" and "FC". Then fill the interior black circle with the star/sunburst, and outline it in the lighter blue. You'll still retain all the elements, but it simplifies everything while still remaining sharp even at a smaller size. The Sunburst pattern for the star is taken directly from the Houston Dynamo primary logo. I'll play with some designs real quick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt. America Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 Alright, here are a couple of the updates I did with @slapshot's suggestions. I won't be able to do any additional edits until tomorrow. I removed train tracks completely from the first, while enlarging tracks on the second. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTConcepts Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 Definitely better than the proposed logo. Then again, anything is better than the proposed logo. Yours is still a great logo, even at step one. I'd go with the second version of the latest one. The updates definitely helped, and I think the current iteration is ready to be used in real life. "You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slapshot Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 I like the bottom one. Now try it without the rails in the middle, and expand the star/starburst to fill the middle circle. Maybe replace the orange outline with blue. In fact, remove the double outline around the outer circle and just have a blue outline. That should balance things out even more. You also don't need the "Est. 2017". It's a new club, you don't have to fake heritage. Back-to-Back Fatal Forty Champion 2015 & 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt. America Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 Thanks! I'll jump on that in a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt. America Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 @slapshot Two versions of your update: one with the Established year and one without. I also wanted to Include one that still had just the orange outline Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt. America Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 QUICK UPDATE: looks like Brazos Valley Rail Runners makes the final 8! They are accepting voting through this link if anybody would like to help me out! Thanks for the suggestion again guys! Vote for "Rail Runners" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt. America Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 My team made the final three! I decided to play around with a secondary design as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broncoboy7 Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 Again I'm coming in with my little nitpick, the pixelation on the outer circle needs to be cleaned up. That's all, and congrats on making it to the final 3! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H11K Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 Wow, I really loved the cleaned up updated one. Fantastic job on the update! Good luck with the contest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt. America Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 3 hours ago, Broncoboy7 said: Again I'm coming in with my little nitpick, the pixelation on the outer circle needs to be cleaned up. That's all, and congrats on making it to the final 3! Cleaned up the lines (.png file with no background this time) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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